UAE's TT boss vows to map out plan to nurture talent

Table tennis in the UAE, which has long been dormant, may have been injected with a fresh dose of life when the country hosted some of the world’s top exponents of the game at the World Team Cup Classic. After earning rave reviews from participants for successfully organising the event, the UAE Table Tennis Association (UAETTA) president Dawood Al Hajiri declared confidently they would be bidding to stage this competition in two years’ time. But more significantly, he pledged to map out a programme to nurture players like Rashid Abdul Hamid Omar who gave notice of his prodigious talent by winning five of his six matches in the Intercontinental Cup segment of the competition. “We are going to have a plan soon for our national team players to go abroad and play in Pro Tours,” said Al Hajiri whose biggest problem is gathering his amateur players to even train before a major tournament. “Our players are not professionals. There are students and some have to go to work. We do have a hard time sometimes to get them leave. Hopefully this will change and we are doing our best to get this problem solved,” he said. The national team’s performance in the competition has also given him fresh impetus. “I think they did very good. The other teams were much experienced and more professional than our players. But it was a very good chance for our players to meet top players,” he said. Al Hajiri confirmed that Omar and Rashid Mohamed will be representing UAE in table tennis at the forthcoming Asian Games. “We will try to get them into a good programme before they go there. To be realistic I don’t think we can compete because in table tennis Asia is the lion continent. We will do our best to get good results,” he said. However, he was optimistic of UAE team doing well at the Arab Championships next year. “Our players are one of the most talented in the Arab world. But we have a problem of their availability. This needs to be solved,” he reiterated. The invitation extended by two Korea clubs for Omar to train there could also go waste for this reason. “We cannot decide right now. It is a good opportunity. Again Rashid is an employee. We need to solve this problem before we decide whether a player can go abroad and practice with the Korean team or not,” he said. On the lack of a second player who could have made a difference in the tournament, the table tennis boss said: “Rashid Mohammed I think he can fill the gap. He has also a problem with work. He hasn’t played for six months.” To another question, he said the UAE team were good as juniors because they were students and during summer they were off. “Now both (Omar and Mohammed) are employees. Getting employed and playing table tennis needs to be solved,” he said. On the brighter side, hosting this tournament has helped in popularising the sport. “Here the most popular sport is football. We have succeeded in telling the people there is another beautiful sport,” said Al Hajiri.